Nerikiri

A hand-shaped fresh sweet modeled on a rose of Sharon, with pink fading to white across the petals and a pressed yellow center for the stamens. Nerikiri is sweet bean paste cooked with a glutinous rice flour binder into a smooth dough that can be sculpted by hand. It is the dough most often used for fine fresh sweets, and those sweets are shaped to show the season, so the flower in the shop case is a clue to the time of year.